BEAUDENOM, Léopold. - Ascetical writer, b. at Tulle on 23 Nov. 1840, d. at Puteaux on 21 Dec. 1916. A much sought-after spiritual director and chaplain to the Ursulines, in order to satisfy his desire to be a missionary he entered the Marists in 1875; but poor health prevented him from continuing. Returning to the chaplaincy of various communities, he was forced by exhaustion to retire to Puteaux, where, in the twenty years that remained to him, he wrote his ascetical works, attuned to the methods and doctrines of St Ignatius and St Francis de Sales, and, out of humility, wished them to appear anonymously until his death.
Formation à l'humilité et par elle aux autres vertus (Papiri 1897; II. trans. Torino 1938); Pratique de l'examen particulier d'après s. Ignace (ibid. 1898); Pratique progressive de la confession et de la direction (2 vols., ibid. 1900; II. trans. Torino 1935-40); Les sources de la piété (ibid. 1908; II. trans. Torino 1938); which forms as it were the third part of the preceding work; Formation morale et religieuse de la jeune fille (2 vols., ibid. 1906-11; II. trans. Torino n.d.); Méditations affectives pratiques sur l'Evangile (4 vols., ibid. 1912-18, the 4th posthumous; II. trans. Firenze 1939). B. had wished to add a 5th on the mysteries of the Resurrection. Other posthumous works: Lettres de direction (Papiri 1919); Orientation de l'âme vers la perfection (ibid. 1929).